Caroline Hale | Contributor

Frozen Minds

 

Time moves forward

But the uneducated mind stands still.

Years go by

People come and people die

But uneducated minds never will.

 

Who’s to say where they come from

Or what form they will take next

They have always listened to rich white males

Never those of different races or the opposite sex.

 

You look in your history books

And you think the ideas have changed

But look past the different years

And the many different names

And you’ll see all these old ideas

Have just been rearranged.

 

You see, at first African Americans were enslaved

Considered property

But now they’re enslaved

By a cycle of poverty.

Just because people do not understand

That the white man’s whip

Has been replaced by an invisible hand

Does not mean the oppression has ceased to stand.

 

Just because marriage equality exists on paper

Does not mean that congress will not try to taper

Away every gay person’s right

To live without submission

To appeal to an audience

That pretends to be Christian.

 

A female may now have a vote in who’s elected

But don’t think that means that her rights are protected

When Congress can take away her right to choose

To accommodate others religious views

It’s not a far cry from when they used to say

That women belong in the kitchen

And have men to obey.

 

While we have made progress

That does not mean success.

And just because the puppet master changed

From a Robert E. Lee

To a Donald J. Trump,

It does not mean the oppression is yet estranged.

 

So don’t let them comfort you

Into a false sense of security

Don’t let them convince you that everything is fine

Keep moving equality forward

Even though some minds are not subject to time.